Wikipedia:TenPoundHammer's Law
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 | This page in a nutshell: If you don't even know the name of an upcoming album, you probably don't know enough about it to write an article. |
TenPoundHammer's Law: If the name and track order of a future album are not yet known, the album is very likely to see its page deleted from Wikipedia. Pages of this sort usually take the naming convention "[name of artist]'s [nth] studio album". There are occasional exceptions to this law, as sometimes a future album will contain enough verifiable information for a decent article even if the title is not known.[1] But if all you can do is look into a crystal ball or base your information off rumors posted to message boards, blogs or MySpace, then it's best not to create a page on the album until you've got something more to say. Wikipedia isn't going anywhere; it's not going to hurt you to wait.[2]
Other applications
By extension, TenPoundHammer's law can also refer to any future subject for which a name is not yet known and no verifiable information from reliable sources yet exists.[3] This might include "future" video games, movies, computer hardware, consoles, books, DVDs, software and other types of media and products. It can even apply to a future band whose name and final members aren't known.[4]
Footnotes
- ^ For example, In Rainbows had a fully fledged article before its name was announced, because the page already contained sufficient sourced information for an article.
- ^ Also consider the fact that arguments like "everybody knows it will be put out soon" or "this is going to be [name of artist]'s biggest album", or worst of all, "you just hate [name of artist], don't you?" don't hold water.
- ^ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wii 2 is the first deletion discussion to cite this essay beyond the scope of albums.
- ^ Yes, that actually happened; see this comment.